thighs? The one who’s been on a hundred dates and is still single?’
‘The very same. Except she’s not single any more. She went on the same app two weeks ago – Madame L’Oracle’s Love Fortunes, it’s called – and Madame L’Oracle told her she was going to meet a man that night and she did! She met a guy from DelightfulDates.com that very night and now they’re engaged!’
I dust down my backside. It has a leaflet explaining the Tower of London stuck to it. ‘After only two weeks? Come on! He’s a conman or a nutter, he has to be.’ From what I’ve heard, the only people who are ‘successful’ on DelightfulDates.com are men who manage to achieve sex with a stranger two hours after messaging them. It’s not for finding long-term love. Not that I’m looking for that, ever again. It’s going to be fun, flirting and frivolity for me, all the way now. I’ve done all my moping and my crying; it’s high time for me to be fabulous.
‘No, he’s a proper bloke! A nice bloke. One of the few. He’s turned out to be amazing. That’s what Jan said.’
‘But I don’t want a bloke, do I? All I want now is to go on a few dates and have some fun.’
‘It’s just a laugh,’ says Sam. ‘We’ll do mine first.’
I suspect Sam hopes it’s a little more than that. She always does. She’s definitely on the lookout for a man and love. She’s been divorced for five years now, from Graham who she met at school; they consciously uncoupled when they realised they didn’t really like each other any more and hadn’t noticed each other’s haircuts for over three years…
‘How much is this nonsense?’ I enquire.
‘It’s free, but Madame L’Oracle, the Psychic Queen, guarantees she’ll be uncannily specific.’ There’s a picture of Madame Oracle on the app. Sam shows me. She’s in pink fur and pearls, her hair bigger than RuPaul’s.
‘Just give me a second…’ says Sam. I wait as she taps away at her phone. ‘Right. Now we wait two minutes. Accurate predictions take time, it says.’ I poke her playfully in the ribs and try not to roll my eyes as I focus on the screen. It’s all pink and white. On a jacquard background a picture of a crystal ball is oscillating whilst white cloudy stuff swirls in it, and an old-fashioned clock counts down the minutes. What laughable hocus pocus. Still, Sam’s one of my best friends; I’m going with it because I always do.
One of the Japanese tourist peers over Sam’s shoulder.
‘Oi, nosey! Bog off! Right. Here we are. Ooh, okay, this is mine: You have an eighty percent chance of heat bringing you love.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Yes! Heat will bring me love! Simples!’
‘But that could mean anything! I thought it was supposed to be specific! That’s totally vague and really random,’ I laugh.
‘It could be specific. I just have to focus. Heat, heat…what could it mean? Should I book another trip to Lanzarote?’ She pulls her wool coat more tightly round her. It’s really cold for the end of October and the skies are darkening already. Rain is due in about an hour, I know. ‘Right, your turn.’
‘If I must.’
‘You must.’
We both stare at the phone again. Finally the shifting white fog in the crystal ball shifts and a pink heart flashes up. Inside, in black scroll-y writing, are the words, ‘You have a 99% chance of falling in love by Friday.’ Sam raises her eyebrows at me and grins. I burst out laughing.
‘How exciting!’ she exclaims.
Now I do roll my eyes. ‘Ooh, Friday,’ I say. ‘I think I’m busy that day. Let me check my diary…’ Actually, I am busy that day. It’s Freya’s graduation. Jeff and I are both going. It’ll be okay… I hope. We’ll be a civilized divorced couple… I hope.
Sam grabs my arm and looks all bog-eyed. Her dark hair is whipping all over her face in the wind. ‘Daryl, it might happen!’
‘Nah,’ I say. ‘And I don’t want it to. Love is for mugs. From now on I’m all about friends and a bit of flirting. That’s it.’
‘You say that,’ she says, ‘but if love came along…’
‘It won’t come along!’ I insist. ‘Look, it’s a giggle, all this stuff, but it’s a load of old guff. Let’s go and get another drink.’
‘Don’t mock,’ pouts Sam. ‘And you’d better be careful. What if this means you’re going to fall in love with the first man you see, or something…?’
‘Yeah right,’ I say. We look ahead of us and both catch sight of a skinny man in a cycle helmet and bicycle clips, with no bicycle in sight, walking past us wearing an ‘I’m With Stupid’ sweatshirt. ‘There you go, there’s the first man I’ve seen. What’s the probability of me getting it on with him?’ We start giggling.
‘Whatever,’ insists Sam, ‘you can’t leave these things completely to chance. I would suggest a date a night until Friday, just to keep your options open.’
‘A date a night? Who the hell with?’
‘I dunno. People.’
‘People. And where would I find these people?’ This was the part of my four-point plan I hadn’t really grappled with yet. Where the hell to find men to date. Everyone seemed to meet people via online dating these days, but it wasn’t for me. The whole thing terrified me. And as for Tinder, I couldn’t bear the thought of it. All those predatory men swiping left, over and over again…
‘Who knows! Just look around you, my friend.’
We look around us. Five hundred tourists and a man selling hot dogs, but not a hottie amongst them. We shrug at each other and grin, then I looked up at the clouds which are ominously black and in the mood for rain.
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘We’ve got more celebrating to do. Let’s hit another bar.’
Monday
Oh god. I was on the ground again, wasn’t I? A very cold ground, that was also very wet and quite stony. A ground that was far too close to my face. And I wasn’t sitting on my bottom this time. No, that would have been respectable and acceptable, especially if I’d still been in Trafalgar Square. People often sit around the tourist bits of London, eating stuff, chatting and taking photos; it’s expected, they do it all the time. What nobody does is lie on their fronts, with their coat twisted all round them like a straitjacket and one boot off, face down on the drive they share with their next door neighbour in a quiet residential street in Wimbledon. In the middle of the night.
Yes, the hunky neighbour. Yes, the neighbour who’d given me my divorce papers yesterday morning. Yes, the neighbour who was currently standing over me and looking concerned.
Oh god. My mind flashed through how I got here. London. Trafalgar Square. Drinking cocktails with Sam. Dancing on the table in that
